


Thalassophilia

by Sweets_Thief



Series: Kylux Oneshots [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:48:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweets_Thief/pseuds/Sweets_Thief
Summary: Red hair was uncommon on Alderaan but it wasn’t unheard of. It was a different story on the exotic island of Naboo. Han said that people born with red hair on Naboo were called “children of the se” because they were usually born close to the ocean, and had rich, sea coloured eyes.Ben Solo falls in love with the sea. Or rather, he falls in love with red-headed Armitage, who comes from the sea.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I WANTED TO JUMP ON THE MERMAID BANDWAGON FOR KYLUX BECAUSE I LOVE THIS SORT OF AU SO MUCH!
> 
> it's not really a set idea of a mermaid, just my own sort of imagining of it!
> 
> There is a sort of aesthetic mood board for it [ here ](http://rannystuffandthings.tumblr.com/post/159015809469/thalassophile-noun-lover-of-the-sea-i-did-a) on my tumblr!

 

 

Red hair was uncommon on Alderaan but it wasn’t unheard of. It was a different story on the exotic island of Naboo. Han said that people born with red hair on Naboo were called “children of the sea” because they were usually born close to the ocean, and had rich, sea coloured eyes. Ben took everything Han said with a pinch of salt, as Leia had always warned him too even when he was young, but there was something so magical about Han’s stories of mermaids and sea creatures that he couldn’t help but believe.

There was a boy on Naboo that lived by the sea in a small cottage. When they travelled to Ben’s grandmother’s beachside villa every year Ben always saw this boy, standing on the rocks overlooking the ocean but never venturing inside. The other children there on holiday would laugh and splash about in the waves, screaming and having fun, but not this one boy. He had bright orange hair and hypnotising green eyes, that seemed to pierce to the very soul. The first-time Ben had seen him he had wanted to get to know him. At least the same age of Ben or a little older, the boy didn’t speak, even when Ben approached him.

He was seven the first time, walking up to where the boy was standing on the rocks. They were slimy and cold, and wet from the high tide, and when Ben tried to climb them he fell on his ass in the sand with an “oomph”. The boy didn’t even bother glancing at him.

“What are you doing?” Ben called loudly, picking his way around the rocks and standing ankle deep in the ocean as the boy stared out into the waves.

The boy looked down at him. Ben met his green eyes, and his mouth dropped open.

“What are you doing?” Ben repeated louder, attempting to climb the rocks again and falling into the sea this time. He sliced the palm of his hand on the way down, and as the blood mingled with the water, the red headed boy moved quickly. He avoided the water, crouching on the rocks and taking Ben’s hand in his.

“Are you okay?” He asked. His voice was quiet and soft, and with an accent Ben had never heard before.

Ben nodded. “How did you get up there?”

“I was up there when the water was.” The boy shrugged, releasing Ben’s hand. Ben stared down at his palm and gasped. The cut was gone and the skin was puffy, like he had been holding it under water for too long.

“H-How did you do that?” Ben asked, scrambling to his feet.

The boy stared at him.

“Do you have a name.”

“…Armitage.”

“I’m Ben.”

Armitage said nothing else, turning his head away from Ben and looking back across the rocks. Someone was calling his name, urgently, and before Ben could say anything, Armitage was gone. The rocks were no obstacle to him, and Ben was left standing in the ocean looking down at newly healed palm in shock. When he told Han and Leia about it later, Han had laughed and tapped his nose, saying “mermaid magic” and making Ben grin. Leia rolled her eyes but smiled fondly. Later, when Ben told Anakin about it as his grandfather tucked him into bed, Anakin’s expression took a serious turn.

“Mermaids are real, Benny, whatever you believe of your dad’s stories.” He whispered, kneeling down next to Ben’s head, “And they can be dangerous. Be careful out there, but if you can catch one, do it.”

“Why, grandfather?” Ben asked, eyes wide as he met Anakin’s gaze.

“Because they love so deeply and passionately that it is like something you could never imagine.” Anakin murmured, and smiled, “And they listen well.”

“Do you know a mermaid?”

Anakin smiled mysteriously, “I might.” He laughed, “Go to sleep Ben, and track down your mermaid again tomorrow.”

\--

Ben didn’t see Armitage again for another four years. It was on his eleventh birthday that the red-haired boy appeared again. Ben had run from the beach villa in tears, after a fight between Han and Leia over what to do with the place. Padme had passed away three years ago, and Anakin had disappeared soon after. There was a rumour he had walked into the sea and never come back. Leia wanted to sell the house and invest the money. Han wanted to keep the house, fond of the memories of that they had created there, and of their summers on Naboo.

Sitting on the rocks with the sun going down, Ben cried. He didn’t hear the other boy approaching him, didn’t notice until he felt a warm thigh press against his own as Armitage sat down on the rock next to him. His red hair was longer now, down to the shoulders and it looked wet. He didn’t speak, sitting and staring out into the ocean as Ben cried.

“Do you live here all the time?” Ben eventually sniffed.

Armitage nodded.

“Do you like it?” He asked.

“I suppose.” Armitage said, his voice just as quiet and soft as Ben remembered.

Naboo wasn’t a big island, and everything good to do was congregated around this beach area, where the villas and shops and sea experiences were. He had seen the house people believed Armitage lived in and it looked abandoned. And he hadn’t seen Armitage for years, which seemed impossible considering the size of the place. Was Armitage really a mermaid? Did he live in the ocean, free to travel wherever he wanted?

“Why are you crying?” Armitage asked.

“It’s my birthday.” Ben replied sullenly, forgetting for a moment that Armitage didn’t know that his parents had been fighting and had ruined the day for him. The boy shot him a confused look, his green eyes burning in the setting sun.  
“My parents are fighting. They don’t know what to do with our house. I want to keep it.”

Armitage didn’t speak. He reached into a small satchel he was carrying – Ben hadn’t even noticed it, but it had sea shells attached to the strap carefully, and Armitage was even wearing a line of pearls in his hair. Silently, Armitage handed over an object to Ben. It was a necklace made from shark teeth and cowrie shells, twined together and beautifully handcrafted. Ben stared at it.

“It’s your birthday.” Armitage said simply, “Happy birthday.”

“This is for me?!” Ben exclaimed, feeling his anger and sadness fading quickly. “Wow! Did you make it?”

“Yes.” Armitage replied, “You’re going to stay on this island, Ben.”

“How do you know?” Ben inquired.

Fixing him with a strange stare, Armitage’s next words sent a chill through Ben that wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

“Your grandfather told me.”

“Wha-…I don’t understand!”

Armitage merely smiled and stood. Someone was calling his name again, inevitably calling him away from Ben. Ben stood too, quickly, scrambling after Armitage as he quickly hopped down from the rocks, ever careful of the sea, and rushed away. There was a blonde, short haired girl waiting for him. She caught Ben’s eye as Armitage approached her and her own eyes narrowed. She said something in a low voice to Armitage, and he rolled his eyes but followed her away from the beach up to the grassy sand dunes and over the top. Ben watched them go, feeling something curling in his gut at Armitage’s words.

\--

He never removed the necklace. He told his parents a friend gave it to him, and they were so shocked that he had a friend on the island they didn’t question it. Armitage’s words soon came true for Leia finally agreed to keep the house, after Han quietly reminded her that this was her mother’s house, and Padme would have wanted her to keep it.

By the time Ben was sixteen he was a trouble-maker and his parents fought worse than before. What made it worse was the fact that they didn’t fight when he wasn’t around, but there was always a simmering tension between them when he was. Ben had become rebellious. During an accident on a skiing holiday he had a long scar diagonally across his face and shoulder, and he was bitter about everything. He missed his grandfather, and he missed his dad’s wild tales and he missed Naboo.

Their trips became less frequent and soon stopped all together. Ben would sit in the dark of night and hold the necklace Armitage had given him and think of him. He would dream of a golden tail, a tail that flashed orange in certain lights, complimenting his hair. Armitage’s tail would be long and elegant, with translucent fins and he would take excellent care of it. His long orange hair would be down near his elbows now, and it would flow in the water perfectly. He’d have more jewellery on, created from various shells and pearls and sea-weed. Ben loved those dreams and the longing to return to Naboo grew and grew until one day he demanded they go back.

“Don’t be stupid, Ben.” Leia said in exasperation, trying to close a deal online for her banking firm as she spoke, “It’s winter, no one travels to Naboo in winter.”

“It’s not winter it’s spring!” Ben argued, “And it’s not cold there in spring. Grandfather said so.”

“Listen to your mother, Ben.” Han sighed, coming into the kitchen with a dejected air. “She said no and she means no.”

Ben didn’t say anything else, pushing a glass off the table in his anger and stomping from the room as the smash echoed around the room. If they wouldn’t take him to Naboo then he would make the money to go on his own.

It took him two years of scrounging for money with part time jobs, full time jobs that he got fired from and avoiding his parents as best he could. He finished high school, barely, but didn’t intend to do anything with his studies. Anakin had worked as a mechanic on Naboo, fixing and enhancing things for the island’s residents and for the visitors that flocked there every year. Ben was just as good with his hands, he could reopen the shop, take up residence in the villa and live there.

He didn’t tell his parents when he left. He packed everything he would need and wanted to take and wrote them a note so they wouldn’t report him missing. And then he walked out without a backward glance.

Naboo wasn’t the same when he got there. It was winter so there wasn’t a lot of people around, just the year-round inhabitants of the island. Some recognised him, others were new, but the villa stood empty until Ben claimed it. The elected Queen of the island allowed him the rights of Anakin’s shop and ownership of the house, as neither Leia nor her twin Luke had claimed the rights of the house in over five years. Stepping into the halls again Ben finally felt at home.

Armitage didn’t appear to him straight away. It took months before Ben finally tracked him down. In those months, Leia and Han came to try and convince him to move home, but agreed to let him stay when they saw how mellow he had become on the island. He had reconnected with some of the locals he had known at the time, mostly Poe and Finn, who lived together in a small, private beach house not too far from the villa. Poe was also good with his hands so he helped out at the shop sometimes. Finn was drifting at the moment, trying to find his feet, and Ben didn’t envy him.

It was night time when it happened. Ben was restless, unable to sleep as the stickiness of summer began to creep over the island. Deciding a walk on the beach would clear his head, Ben dressed in shorts and a vest top and put his long hair up in a ponytail, before heading down the winding path that led him through the dunes directly onto the beach. He didn’t wear shoes, he didn’t need them. The moon illuminated the water well enough for him. The tide was just starting to go out, which was lucky, for Ben knew the dangers of getting caught on the beach when the tide was coming in. Heading for the rocks where he had first met Armitage, he wasn’t hoping for anything, but a flash of red under the moonlight caught his eyes and Ben held his breath.

Armitage was sitting on the rocks, his red hair wet and sticking to his bare chest. From what Ben could tell he wasn’t wearing clothes, but as he grew closer he realised he had a towel around his waist but nothing else. There were pearl beads in his hair again, and bracelets around the tops of his arms. He wore an anklet that gleamed in the moonlight. Ben gripped the necklace tightly as he approached.

“I wondered when you’d come back.” Armitage said, startling the other man. He turned his head and looked right at Ben, green eyes still hypnotic and beautiful. Ben flushed, glad for the slightly darkness. He had never really thought of Armitage as beautiful until his teenage dreams, when he had really begun to discover the limits and flexibility of his sexuality. Seeing him in the flesh only reiterated to Ben just how beautiful he was.

“Life has a certain knack for getting in the way.” Ben shrugged, sitting down on the rocks next to Armitage despite their dampness from the sea, “I’ve been here for months, I’ve not seen you.”

“I’ve been away.” Armitage said airily, “Are you back for good?”

“I’m staying here for now.” Ben nodded, “For as long as I want. The house is mine now. Where do you live?”

“Around the island.” Armitage replied, “Don’t pretend you don’t know Ben, I know you’ve guessed.”

“That you’re a mermaid?!” Ben asked in a hushed whisper, much too quickly.

Armitage stared at him and laughed, loudly, a clear sound like running water. “Astuteness is becoming of you. What gave me away?”

“My father and grandfather would tell stories of mermaids and their magic. When you healed my palm that time I suppose I guessed. And I um…had dreams about you.” Ben admitted, embarrassed.

“Falling in love with a mermaid does that to you.” Armitage murmured, “Much like falling in love with a man can have the same effects.”

“You…you dream about me?” Ben sputtered, “Wait…what do you mean love?!”

“Isn’t that what this is?” Armitage asked, turning to look at Ben again. He stood, holding out his hand for Ben to take and the dark-haired man did so without a second thought. “I thought you would recognise it.”

“My grandfather said…mermaids love deeply and are so passionate, like you’d never believe.” He told Armitage, “Humans aren’t really the same I don’t think. Where are we going?”

“To the sea.” Armitage said simply.

Ben couldn’t stop the stab of fear that followed. “It’s not safe. It’s night time.”

“You’ll be safe with me.” Came the reply. Ben couldn’t argue. There was a feeling in his chest that told him he was being taken to his death, but he couldn’t resist. Armitage was just too perfect, too tempting, everything Ben had been dreaming out.

When they reached the edge of the water, Armitage stopped, his toes just shy of getting wet. Ben stood and waited with him, watching as the sea continued to slowly recede away from them.

“Will you carry me in?” Armitage asked suddenly, turning to Ben.

Ben nodded. It was easy enough to slide Armitage into his arms. He wasn’t completely slim, there was fine muscle on his chest, arms and legs, but Ben had taken to working out and fighting to get his anger and passion out both on Naboo and throughout his teenage years, so he was stronger. Armitage relaxed in his arms, one hand going around Ben’s shoulders, and the other resting on his stomach. The water was cold and Ben was shivering by the time it reached his thighs. Armitage pointed a direction for him to go and suddenly the ground fell out from under him and they both plunged into the sea.

It was safe to say Ben panicked.

He let go of Armitage out of instinct to use his arms to get to the surface, but the drop had disorientated him and he had no idea which way was up. The sea seemed to be inky dark and Ben couldn’t open his eyes under water to find the lighter waters indicating the surface. Something touched him and he tried to pull away, lungs burning for air. The grip grew stronger, and there was a current near him, as if a tail was flowing gently back and forth. Ben’s arms were brought around a slim waist and he felt his fingers slide over scales as he did, skin melting into a smooth mermaid tail. Lips sealed themselves to his own and he opened his mouth in shock. He expected water to pour in but it didn’t, and when Ben next tried to open his eyes he found he could. And what a sight it was.

Armitage was floating before him, long red hair seemingly fluttering in the soft currents of the sea. He had a large, golden tail that seemed to flash red when he moved, just as Ben had dreamed, and it looked just as elegant and beautiful as it had in the dream. The mermaid was wearing a necklace that emitted a soft glow, illuminating the sea and allowing Ben to look at him in awe. Armitage had shared air with him, but Ben’s lungs were beginning to burn again, so he gestured wildly at his chest and throat. It was clear he was understood, for Armitage guided him gently upward until his head broke the surface and Ben was able to gasp for air.

“You are a mermaid!” He coughed as he gulped down as much air as possible. “How do you have human legs?!”

“That’s your first question.” Armitage laughed delightedly, “It’s old magic.”

“Why do you come ashore?” Ben asked.

“My father told me I couldn’t. Phasma, my friend, comes for me when it’s time to go back, but I spend as much time as I can in a human body. I didn’t speak much as a child because it was hard to maintain.” Armitage explained. He was looking at Ben with a serious expression.

“What?” Ben asked nervously.

“Do you trust me?” Armitage asked.

“I…yes. Crazily…yes.” Ben nodded.

Armitage smiled and for a moment Ben was reminded of a predator, but he couldn’t be afraid. They weren’t that far from shore really, he could swim back if he really wanted to and something told him Armitage didn’t really want to hurt him.

“Let me share the gift of the sea with you,” Armitage whispered, swimming closer to Ben and wrapping his arms around Ben’s neck. With strong swishes of his tail he kept them both afloat, and Ben’s arms automatically went around his waist again, pulling him as close as he could. “And then we can share the gift of the land together as well.”

He kissed Ben again then. His lips were chapped and he tasted like salt and freedom and everything Ben had ever wanted. So he let Armitage pull him under, swim with him and show him all he could of his underwater world. They kissed a lot while they swam, Armitage not being able to get enough of him and Ben felt the same. The kisses were intoxicating, and with each one Armitage was ever to pull him down deeper, keep him down for longer, until Ben barely had to take breaths to swim with him.

By the time they broke the surface and made for the shore, it was late and Ben had realised exactly what Armitage meant by “the gift of the land”. This time when they stepped out of the sea he was naked, the moonlight illuminating his pale skin and making him seem even more ethereal. Ben was glad that the path back to his villa was so secret, he wasn’t sure he wanted to explain why he was bringing a soaking wet, naked, glowing man back to his house.

Armitage fell apart underneath him, unfamiliar with the sensitivities of a human body. Ben didn’t claim to understand the anatomy of a mermaid body, but he paid a lot of attention to Armitage’s thighs, as they seemed to be the most sensitive part of his body. He sucked and bit bruises into the skin and Armitage begged for more. The red-haired man’s teeth were sharp, too sharp but the pain was so intense Ben’s brain interpreted it as pleasure. Seeing Armitage’s already red lips stained with Ben’s blood was more of a turn on than Ben wanted to imagine.

When Ben pushed inside, Armitage gripped him tightly, arms around his shoulders and back arched to accommodate him. They were pressed chest to chest, and it was more intimate than any other time of Ben’s life. Armitage like pulling his hair, winding his fingers through Ben’s dark locks as if it were a lifeline for him as they rocked back and forth. He was vocal, praising Ben, begging and pleading for everything and anything Ben could give him. Ben didn’t stay quiet either, murmuring compliments and curses into Armitage’s skin.

His orgasm was his strongest to date and there was a vaguely worrying concern in the back of Ben’s mind that he wasn’t wearing a condom. He knew he was clean and he had a feeling Armitage had never fucking another man, but Ben had had safe sex drilled into his head during his teenage years. When Armitage pulled him down for a post-orgasm kiss all thoughts fled Ben’s head. He had never felt closer to anyone than he did Armitage right now and suddenly Anakin’s words to him, all those years ago as seven-year-old Ben had been amazed by the thought of a mermaid, made sense.

 

They slept soundly, and when Ben awoke in the morning it was to Armitage sleeping in his arms, red-hair fanned out around him and skin covered in bruises and bites and his lips swollen from the kisses. They were pressed together and Ben felt himself getting hard again. Armitage woke soon after and this time they did it sitting up, Ben’s legs over the edge of the bed and Armitage in his lap. They clung to each other and Armitage bit hard enough to draw blood again and Ben cried out with pleasure each time he did. The mermaid was marking him, he was sure of it, making sure everyone knew who he belonged to and Ben would wear those marks proudly. He was still wearing the necklace, and he kept it on when they stumbled together into the shower and Armitage regretfully told him he had to go home.

“Will you come back tonight?” Ben murmured, unwilling to let him go, arms wrapped around his waist as Armitage braced himself against the shower wall, tilting his head so Ben could nip and suck at his neck again.

“If I can.” He promised, “But I do have to go.” And with a kiss he did. Ben lent him clothes to get him to secluded part of the beach, and then stared forlornly at the ocean without the motivation to do anything. He didn’t open the shop that day, merely wandered about the house and tried to come to terms with what had happened.

\--

Red hair was barely seen on Naboo. Those with red-hair were called “children of the sea” and it was such a rare occurrence that it began island-wide news when a certain red-headed man began cropping up more and more. People saw him waiting on the rocks by the sea, staring out into the ocean for hours. Others saw him swimming, further out than anyone else dared to go. Some had even seen him pacing the sand dunes.

No one saw him walking the path to Ben’s villa, or saw how Ben went swimming with him as many nights as he could.

The rumours flew throughout the years as Ben, famous on the island for his skills, never seemed to get older. He laughed it off, saying it was good genes. People came and went on the island but Ben stayed. He loved the sea and the island itself. But he loved Armitage more.

When Ben disappeared it caused uproar in the community, and when Poe went into his house to find him, he found the villa empty of Ben’s personal belongings. He knew Ben loved Naboo and never wanted to leave, but Poe had a feeling he hadn’t left under duress. Nobody saw him and the strange, red-haired man packing up his things. They didn’t see them hire a boat and sail to the nearest, non-occupied island, and no one noticed how they swam for hours in the ocean, and spent their nights under the stars and the moon on the beach, soaking up all their time together.

Ben became something on a legend on Naboo. It did not go unnoticed that the red-haired man disappeared at the same time he did. The legend that stuck was that a mermaid had ensnared him, and Ben was doomed to life an eternity as its slave.

A hundred years after their first meeting, when most of those who had been alive with Ben had passed on, the children who grew up on Naboo played a game. At night, under a full moon, they would wade into the ocean until they were standing up to their waists and listen. Those who were lucky would hear the tell-tale splashing sounds of a mermaid close by and the unmistakable sounds of the human whose heart he had stolen swimming with him.


End file.
